My Experience

For VW Jetta crash click here.

Here's my car stereo experiences starting with the first when I was 15 years old:

Installed a premium Canadian Tire "Pulsar" am/fm dolby cassette deck in the family's 1970 Chrysler/Plymouth Valiant along with a booster equalizer and two high powered 6x9 speakers in the rear deck. Sounded pretty good compared to all the other cars around town. The booster/eq eventually got stolen while the car was parked at the airport in Toronto.

In 1986, on a trip to Germany, I picked up a really neat booster/eq which had a slew of adjustments and memory frequency presets. This thing was pretty cool in it's time. Had 4x25wrms real power.

In 1987 I bought my first car, an orange 1973 VW Beetle. Pulled the motor out of it and rebuild it with 87mm cylinders and pistons to 1641cc, adding an Engle 120 hi-lift cam, lightened flywheel, chrome exhaust valves, dual port heads, dual 40mm Kadron carbs, 4 into 1 header exhaust... this car went good. Had lots of gas pedal left even at 100mph! I used to beat Transam's off the lights. Ha ha.

Anyhow, I popped a Sansui am/fm dolby deck in it along with speakers I had lying around and that new booster/eq.

I got sick of having no bass so I removed the rear seat-back and build a box back there to hold two 15inch radio shack woofers and two tweeters. That car was "rockin" pretty good after that.

I ended up trading in the 1973 bug on a 1967 VW Beetle which was destined for drag racing. I hacked off the front and installed a one-piece fiberglass nose on it. Gutted the interior. Added a fiberglass racing bucket seat, big tachometer, electric line-lock on the front brakes (for burn-outs), some nice wide tires and a 2.0 L 914 style motor I snatched out of a Vanagon along with 44 IDA Weber carbs, custom made 4 into 1 exhaust, custom made Porsche style fan shroud. Anyhow I raced this car a few times, successfully with an 1835cc motor borrowed from my old friend Dave Bowering who own Abby Country Motors in Abbotsford. He was racing a completely rebuilt and gorgeous 1956 Beetle at the time that was pulling 12.90 1/4 mile times with a fancy 2110cc motor and 48 IDE webers. Redlined at 14,000!! Talk about tearing your ears out... wicked sounding. You can see a picture of it on their website here: http://www.abt-biz.com/abbycountrymotors/ . If you need mechanical work on your car be sure to stop by and visit Dave & Kathy.

Best I ever did was 14.66 in the 1/4 and a hair under 100mph.

I bought a Sherwood BP-4005 (I think was the model number) 2x100 or 4x50 watts rms amplifier and for fun built a stereo in that drag race car. The back seat area was taken up by 4... yes 4x 15inch woofers. It sounded like a dream. My brother attributes some of his hearing loss to sitting in that car and crankin it!

I think it was in 1989 I bought a 1982 Toyota 4x4 pickup. Moved the Sansui deck into that, and had a custom made box built housing a Denon 10inch subwoofer behind the passenger side front seat. Not a lot of room in those Toyotas. This truck served me well. I beat the living crap out of it including 33" super swamper tires and mud up to the doors and it took a lickin and kept on tickin! There were some days you could only see the windshield where the wipers were, everything else had an inch of mud on it. We were nuts when we were young.

Somewhere in all this I owned a worn-out Manx style dune buggy which I wanted to restore but didn't have the money to do - that's still a dream to own one of those neat vehicles. A hypo VW motor in one of these really moves because it's a fiberglass body... less weight = more acceleration.

In 1990-91 I helped friends of mine install stereo systems with separate front/rear/sub amplifiers and 12inch subwoofers. One was Chuck Neufeld's 1990 Chrysler Laser RS Turbo (sister car to Eagle Talon but FWD), and Richard Friesen's 1990 Nissan 240SX Fastback which is still alive, and well today. He's done some really neato changes to the car since then. Edit: Recently his sister-in-law bought the car and he stepped up to the plate with a 1990 300ZX twin-turbo....fabulous car. Stereo plans are in the works right now. (June 10,03)

Everything was sold or traded-in and in 1991 and I bought a 1990 Ford Ranger S/Cab 4x4. To that was added a new Sony am/fm cassette cd-changer controller deck and 10 disc cd changer that is still alive to this day. It'll go into our boat when I find the time I guess.

Anyhow I swapped the 10inch Denon subwoofer into the Ranger in a new enclosure which I slapped together as a temporary measure. I soon found a single 10" driver just doesn't cut it for bass production. Not enough cubic inches! (I should say radial inches)

I ended up building a huge box which basically took the whole back seat supercab area and filled it with two radio shack 15 inch woofers. That sounded really great powered by my old Sherwood 2x100wrms amplifier.

Not content I found a used Audiocontrol Epicenter for $99 at a local car audio shop and up went my bass performance. It was amazing the dull music that lacked bass, that you could add bass to with the epicenter. I was moving people's hair that sat in the truck!

I originally bought an Ungo Box alarm system with starter kill which turned out to be a complete dud (along with 2 friends who bought the same alarms - piece of crap) and used to go off in the middle of the night... I saw it go off one time standing right by it and it told me the motion sensor triggered.... ya right. Ripped that out and replaced it with a very reliable Alpine unit that I have to this day....buy an Alpine!!

Soon after I got married I convinced my beautiful wife that I needed a new amplifier and a new subwoofer in a smaller box so we could haul some groceries in the back seat of the Ranger.

After much research I ended up purchasing a Rodek 2150i amplifier that had 2x150wrms and 500wrms mono-bridged power output. This sucker had no provisions for a fuse either... bullet-proof.

Then I bought a Cerwin Vega XL-15 subwoofer which is still alive in my brother's VW Jetta. I blew that sub in the truck I think 2 times. Had it re-coned twice too. It was rated for 330 watts and the Rodek was beating it up.

Poor old Ranger's 90A alternator couldn't keep up at full audio system volume, even the voltmeter in the dash did a disco dance without any lights or accessories turned on! Jeez.

Things were good though.

Somewhere around that time I managed to pick up a demo set (at Performance Car Stereo in North Vancouver) of MB Quart 5 1/4inch 2-way speakers for a steal! They were mounted in the Ranger replacing the factory front speakers and I mounted the tweeters under the dash facing up at the front driver/passenger. They sounded great!

The transmission in the Ranger died and was rebuilt and subsequently was dying (rebuilt by a shop in Abbotsford - do yourself a favour and never have your tranny rebuilt, get a new one with warrantee!!) so it was traded in on a brand new big red 1998 Ford F-150 XLT Supercab 4x4. My baby (#2 that is!).

Most of my previously acquired goodies were swapped into it along with a brand new Sony single cd deck with changer-controller and a new smaller 10 disc cd changer mounted under the seat.

I went with deck power for the front and rear speakers which sounded good and my Rodek amplifier powered a single newly acquired (later) 12 inch Audiobahn Alum-12 subwoofer (see pic below) in a self-built, sealed, carpeted enclosure behind the driver's seat mounted mostly under the rear seat with the Alum-12 mounted facing into the box to aid motor vent cooling.

Separating the signals now is an Audiocontrol EQX which was bought off a demo board from a local car audio dealer (Ralf's Radio in Vancouver) for cheap.

4 gauge power and ground cables were pilfered out of the Ranger as well. Fortunately the F-150 has a nice 130A alternator which has no problems powering the audio equipment.

I also took the Alpine alarm from the Ranger and installed it with starter kill. I haven't got around to installing the power door lock interface yet.

I'm not using the Audiocontrol Epicenter in this installation. The Alum-12 pounds so low it's not necessary.

This system sounds great.

I wonder what it would sound like with a bigger class-D amplifier and 2 or 3 Alum-12 subs??

Edit: A few months ago I replaced my Rodek amp with a US Acoustics USX1000F amplifier and added a US Acoustics USX-2080 for the front channels. I also had to add a Scosche ground loop isolator which works like a charm. Bought it for only $10 @ www.princessauto.com last week. (June 10,03)

Last summer I installed (with my brother helping and learning) a JVC single cd deck, an Audiobahn 2-way crossover with dash-mounted control in my brother's Jetta along with my old Sherwood amplifier and my old Cerwin Vega 15 inch subwoofer. We also replaced the factory speakers with units from JBL. Along with some 8 gauge power and ground cables and high quality RCA cables. Sounds pretty good for a low-budget install.

Edit: The Jetta was rear-ended by a brand new Mercedes ML430 SUV and took it as far as blowing out the rear window, miraculously the subwoofer box in the trunk survived!!! It actually pushed into the rear seat but is intact with all components still bolted onto it. Darn miracle. Everyone in the car is ok too but very stiff and sore. Impact was ~35mph. The SUV didn't brake at all. The 16yr old Asian driver will probably be charged with "driving with undue care and attention" and lose her licence for a period of time. Makes you wonder if they should have driver training mandatory or raise the driving age to at least 18. The Jetta was pushed into the new BMW stopped in front (line up of a few cars stopped for the traffic light). So it looks like a writeoff according to the firemen at the scene. Unfortunately we just put new struts and shocks into the car as well as a new clutch, entire exhaust system, engine mounts, etc. ICBC doesn't reimburse you for new parts which is a crime. Any replacement used vehicle you buy is going to need at least $1000 in repairs. If you and/or your vehicle are involved in an accident that isn't your fault you LOSE big time. If your vehicle is repairable you get nothing for it at trade-in time so you better hope it's a write-off (keep reading). I'll post pictures of the messed up Jetta soon. (June 10,03)

Edit: ICBC has decided the car is only worth slightly less than $3800. What a joke. If you look in the Buy&Sell or local newspapers there's nothing in that price range except hunks of junk. Pictures shown below. (June 19, 03)

ICBC did pull all the stereo equipment out of the car that was installed by us (aftermarket) except for the 8gauge power cables and RCA cables which amounts to around $60 worth. They also left the subwoofer box because the wimps wouldn't take a hydraulic jack to open up the compressed trunk. With their writeoff low-ball offer I'd ask for the freakin RCA and power cables.

If you invest thousands of dollars into your vehicle with audio/video equipment, if you have an accident, pay the tow truck driver cash to bring the vehicle to your residence so that you can remove the equipment yourself. ICBC doesn't let you touch the car in their inspection facility or lot because of workman's comp rules (whatever). As far as my opinion goes, YOU are the registered owner of your vehicle and the insurance company has NO RIGHT to it unless you sign it over. Driver beware!

In this vehicles case, they basically paid back two years worth of insurance payments and not replacement value of same year, same make vehicle, similar condition. No wonder many people are wary of ICBC. You get the wholesale value of your vehicle back and are expected to pay retail at the dealership or private sale. Fair isn't it?

With private insurance at least your insurance company is working for your interests. Not in B.C.

That's all for now folks.

:-)